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SpinLaunch, a pioneering space company enabling rapid and sustainable low-cost access to space, has announced that aerospace-industry veteran Matthew Mejía has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. Mejía comes to ...

SpinLaunch Hires Leading Aerospace Investment Strategist Matthew Mejía As Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer

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Jonathan Yaney, Founder & CEO of SpinLaunch, appoints Mejía as CFO & CSO to lead the company’s fundraising efforts and accelerate the commercialization of SpinLaunch’s integrated tech stack that includes low-cost launch, satellites, and services.

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SpinLaunch, a pioneering space company enabling rapid and sustainable low-cost access to space, has announced that aerospace-industry veteran Matthew Mejía has joined the company as Chief ...

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Jonathan Yaney, Founder & CEO of SpinLaunch, appoints Mejía as CFO & CSO to lead the company’s fundraising efforts and accelerate the commercialization of SpinLaunch’s integrated tech stack ...

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Jonathan Yaney, Founder & CEO of SpinLaunch, appoints Mejía as CFO & CSO to lead the company's fundraising efforts and accelerate the commercialization of SpinLaunch's integrated tech stack that ...

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SpinLaunch has developed a fundamentally new way to reach space. By leveraging a ground based, kinetic launch system, we deliver constellations of small satellites into Low Earth Orbit at dramatically lower cost and higher cadence than any existing space launch company. SpinLaunch is also the first truly environmentally sustainable launch system – delivering less expensive, more scalable access to space.

SpinLaunch

Meet the Winners of Startups in North and Central America

To Become a Space Faring Civilization, We need to Move Beyond Rockets, including SpaceX and Blue…

If you think about the science fiction utopias of old, one thing was usually present: a widespread sharing of technology and ideas. Open source is the modern-day realization of that utopian dream. It's a way for developers to create and share software so that anyone can use, study, change, and improve it. The advantages of are numerous. Developers can save time and effort because they don't have to start from scratch. They can also be confident that their work will be compatible with other open-source projects. open source And, perhaps most importantly, they can trust that the platform will be well-maintained and supported by a community of developers. When I recently sat down with with Ian Tien to discuss his route from making HTML5 online video games to becoming a VC-backed CEO, I didn't think I was going to come out with a full-length explainer of the benefits of open source platforms. But that is kind of the point, isn't it? Ian was generous with his time and knowledge, happy to share anything that would drive the conversation forward, encouraging more people to follow his path down the open source path. From SpinPunch to MatterMost Like any good story, Ian’s CEO journey started with an inciting incident. While developing online games for a company called SpinPunch, an early messaging service suddenly put all of their communication data behind a paywall. What spun out of that would eventually become MatterMost, an open-source alternative to SaaS platforms like Slack and Notion. His decision to make it open was influenced by a friend who explained the choice simply: “If you open source it and it is popular, you can always close it without giving away that much. But if you open source it and no one cares, you should just stop working on it - go do something else.” Ian believes now that by making the platform available for developers all over the world to work on, you can save productivity and avoid those wasted hours of “1000 companies rebuilding the same thing. But he wasn’t going to stop with high-concept advice like that. Just like his company - he’s an open book. How to Find a Market Fit It’s great to think of things as a utopia but in today’s world, these projects still have to include a capitalist slant. There has to be a way to make money, and for that, you need customers and a market. “Follow the emotion,” says Ian, who explains that the best way to know what people will pay for is by seeing what they react to emotionally. What is so important for them to fix that they will spend money to do it? Anybody Could Just Copy it, Right? I’ll admit it. Before this conversation with Ian, I had the same thought that so many other people do when considering open-source software. Couldn’t someone just take all of your work, and copy it? While the answer is yes, technically, he offered some pretty compelling evidence to suggest that even though someone could doesn’t mean they actually would. The team at MatterMost uses the acronym TACTICAL to explain. Test Infrastructure A good open source project will have a comprehensive test infrastructure in place that can be used to verify the correctness of changes and additions. This includes unit tests, integration tests, end-to-end tests, and more. A well-tested project is less likely to break when someone makes a change. Since this testing work isn’t open source - much of it is done with actual human testing so it can’t be - you can “fork” the project, but you would need to rebuild that entire infrastructure from scratch. Alignment One of the biggest things that Ian explained was “don’t try to monetize developers” because it will “militarize every developer against you.” What he means by this is don’t make the paid part of the service the things that developers need; instead, offer them the free stuff so that you can benefit from their creativity while offering the paid features to IT professionals and executives. As Ian puts it, developers “don’t like building the compliance features” meaning they won’t try to steal the whole platform. Core Committers This is a key part of not only keeping your project safe but making sure that you have the best people working on it. Bring in the community members that are most dedicated and allow them to work directly for the company, instead of just building additional capabilities on the outside. Bring your potential competitors inside your tent, and they will never become your enemy. Threat Intelligence Security is a huge part of any open source project, and Ian is so obviously committed to this side of the business that he brought it up several times in our conversation. In this context, he explained how it can be used as a way to keep any potential competitors at bay. If a report is submitted that points out a security flaw, the company will fix it, and let their customers know it is fixed, but not release the details of the patch for 30 days. If someone “forked” the platform, not only would they not have access to that fix immediately but they wouldn’t have even received the report in the first place. Innovation If a platform continues to innovate and you try to copy the entire system, you won’t be able to keep up (I could barely keep up with Ian in a one-on-one talk, what chance do you have of matching his entire team!) Compatibility Once again mentioning security, Ian mentions how if you took one build of the software and tried to copy it, any future patches won’t work properly. You would have to be doing most of the work yourself to integrate the fix, making the whole project untenable. Architecture If you build it correctly in the first place, there will be little reason to recreate it anyway. The whole point is that you can change an open source project, meaning you can leverage all the work that has been done and make it specific to your needs without rebuilding the whole thing. Licensing The last thing, and perhaps the one that makes the most sense to the average investor, is that while the code is open source, the trademark is not. So if you were trying to take it all and build a new brand it would be just that - a new brand. You wouldn’t be benefiting from the work that MatterMost (or whatever other company you were taking from) has already done to build trust in the community. Taking Open Source SaaS to Market So while the philosophical debate over open and closed source software may be interesting, the more pressing question for many of you will be how you take an open source project and turn it into a valuable company. “It’s really about building something that people want.” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Despite that, so many startups seem to forget the product development loop that is necessary - a loop that includes direct communication and feedback. Talk to customers: What do you think of this? What features would it need? Would you pay for it? Build product: Here is something that fixes your problem. Exercise: Keep your business healthy, lean, and growing with constant evaluation. This isn’t a one-time list of steps. You need to loop it over and over and over throughout the entire life cycle of a company. It’s never enough to know what a customer wants today; you need to know what they want tomorrow, six months from now, and three years down the line. Retaining Great Talent Without Investment One of the most interesting parts of the conversation with Ian revolved around some of the strategies he has employed in hiring and retaining the best talent available, even without the benefit of huge capital investment. Open source projects help in this way, though it isn’t with direct compensation. “The people that are money motivated - go work in hedge funds,” he said, laughing off the idea as if it is something that he easily could have done if he wanted to. Instead, he focuses on three things when he’s trying to attract talent that belongs in the open source world. : “If you do it right, it never has to be written again.” The idea is that if you want to make a mark in software history, this is how you’re going to do it - not counting the Netflix options in your portfolio. Impact : “Half our managers are promoted from within.” Enabling your employees to grow and develop within your company is integral to retention in any industry, and perhaps even more so in tech. No one wants to sit still, even if they are being compensated well. Growth : “The ability to walk off a plane in 20 different cities around the world and have people greet you at the airport.” Working with people all over the globe, no matter what culture, background, or location, is a key part of hiring for an open-source project. That is kind of the whole point - everyone can be a part of it. Connection But while these three things are the attributes to look for, it may be hard to foster that kind of talent pool without a little bit of work. Building the Community There is a skill shortage in so many different developer fields, so building an engaged, excited community is key to any sort of company growth. These are the people you will be drawing from for your next position, whether it is through a referral or, in the case of open source, the delivery of a ticket. Ian suggests that at least in this field, it comes down to three key principles. : You have to be crystal clear with which projects are available, and which will be accepted. Clarity : Focus on the people who can deliver something quickly, that they had a passion to create. Instead of someone who works half-heartedly on it for weeks or months. Speed : The last thing a developer wants is to have a pull request rejected, despite correctly following the instructions. You must create a space where developers know that their time isn’t being wasted. Safety If something is rejected, Ian explains that is “our failure, not the contributor’s.” That is the crux of the whole thing - take the responsibility of providing clear, efficient, processes that will give your developers a sense of security about the project they choose to work on. Wrap-Up There is so much more to learn from someone like Ian, especially given how willing he is to share his knowledge. “Success for me is living up to all the gifts that I’ve been given.” He knows he had some advantages over others, and he wants to make sure he doesn’t squander those. So beyond the open source discussion that we’ve distilled above, he also gave his thoughts on the remote work revolution, software security and how it could be improved, and some of the overlooked benefits of bringing in VC money early. If you want to check out the whole interview, head over to the Success Story youtube page , where we have hundreds of podcasts with some of the brightest minds in business today. We’ll be back with another one next week! Also published here

Build on Top: Using Open Source Platforms to Increase Productivity

Creating and Releasing an App with Flutter: Part II

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has surprised the crypto community by finding a creative way to regulate the wild west of cryptocurrencies in Hong Kong. Here are the Key Takeaways from SFC’s “Statement on the regulatory framework for virtual asset portfolios managers, fund distributors and trading platform operators.” Funds investing solely in virtual assets that do not constitute securities need not be licensed by SFC. However, the distributors of funds that invest in virtual assets need to obtain Type 1 regulated activity license from SFC. These distributors also need to conduct strict due diligence as per SFC guidelines on unlicensed virtual asset funds before recommending them to investors. Existing licensed Asset Managers (Type 9 regulated activity) who invest 10% or more of gross asset value in virtual assets will now subject SFC’s oversight for virtual asset investments as well. Only professional investors will we allowed to invest in the virtual asset funds. Crypto Exchanges can now opt-in to be regulated by SFC by applying to be a part of the SFC sandbox. These announcements are welcome as they provide much-needed legitimacy to the investment activity around cryptocurrencies. Regulation and professionalisation of the industry will foster the growth of crypto assets as an asset class. It will also enable existing licenced intermediaries to offer virtual assets as an investment option to their clients. Full text of the circular can be found here https://www.sfc.hk/edistributionWeb/gateway/EN/circular/openAppendix?refNo=18EC78&appendix=0 About ICOMain.io: ICOMain is a one-stop shop for all the things you need to complete a successful ICO. Our comprehensive solutions are designed for companies looking to tap into the immense potential of blockchain and launch their ICO in the most efficient manner possible. Our team comprises of seasoned experts who have a wealth of experience in advising ICOs and is complemented by our cutting-edge technology infrastructure. Our Team is dedicated to understanding their clients’ needs who may come from a diverse range of industries. We are also the first sponsor firm for the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) that aims to be a world-leading, institutional-grade token sale platform and cryptocurrency exchange. Find more about through our online channels: ICOMain.io : Website https://icomain.io/ : Telegram https://t.me/icomain_io Medium: https://medium.com/icomainio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mainlaunchpad/ : Twitter https://twitter.com/mainlaunchpad

Hong Kong’s SFC proposes a creative way to regulate the wild west of cryptocurrencies

Over the last few weeks, there has been a growing interest among the crypto community towards Security Token Offerings, or STOs. The combination of a bearish trend in the crypto markets and intensified crackdown by regulatory authorities, especially the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is driving this trend towards STOs. During , I had the opportunity to speak to many projects who are currently considering, or undergoing the process of, an STO. I noticed that most of the projects do not clearly understand the implication of conducting an STO or consider whether it is the right choice for their business. Hence, in this post, I have tried to pen down my own understanding of the topic for the benefit of the crypto community. Consensus: Singapore 2018 What is an STO? Security tokens are tokens which have attributes of a security. Generally, the following can be considered as a security token: Tokens representing or giving the right to equity shares in a company/enterprise; Tokens representing the right to share in profit or ownership in a Company; Tokens representing a loan or any other debt obligation; Tokens which are backed by real assets like real estate; Tokens representing a unit of a mutual fund or collective investment scheme; Pre-functional utility tokens in the United States. The above list is not exhaustive, as what constitutes a security differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. What may be considered a security in one jurisdiction may not be a security in another jurisdiction. Security Tokens are Well Regulated Since security tokens are considered securities, they need to follow local securities laws which are very well established in most jurisdictions. This means that if you are conducting a public sale of security tokens, you will need to register your STO with the local securities regulator and provide very detailed disclosures as required for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). If you are not taking the public route, then you need to follow the private placement route. Which means that you can raise funding only from Professional/Accredited Investors. Also, in some jurisdictions, the security tokens may be subject to well as restrictions on transfers such as minimum holding period or the need to transfer only to another Professional/Accredited Investor. restrictions on advertisement/ public solicitation as Security Token Hodlers May Not Have Access to Liquidity None of the crypto exchanges currently in existence can list security tokens due to regulatory restrictions. These crypto exchanges need to obtain a license to operate a securities exchanges to list a security token, which none of them currently have. Further, the traditional stock exchanges like NASDAQ or NYSE who can list a security token would not still be able to list them because they lack the infrastructure for clearing and settling blockchain-based digital assets. Given the above scenario, there is no visibility on when or where or if at all security tokens will be listed. Until such time, security token holders may be sitting on a very illiquid investment. Security Tokens are Not Utility Tokens Yes, you have read it correctly. Security tokens are securities and hence cannot be used like utility tokens. This means you cannot use them as your platform currency or medium of exchange. You also cannot use them to gain access to platforms, to incentivize users for using the platform, or as mining rewards. You cannot . Securities are subject to numerous restrictions as to transfers, buybacks etc. and hence they cannot be used the same way as utility tokens. airdrop them or use them for bounty campaigns Security Tokens Won’t Convert into Utility Tokens Many people consider a security token the same as a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT). They believe that once the network is operational, then the security token will get converted into a utility token. But this is not the case. Though both SAFT and security tokens are considered as securities, they operate very differently. In theory, SAFT is an agreement to purchase future tokens which will come into existence when the network is operational. According to the proponents of SAFT, once the network is operational the tokens are already functional and need not be securities under the . Security tokens are designed to be securities and don’t change their character once the network is operational. Once a security token, always a security token. Howey test Concluding Remarks One of the main benefits of security tokens is the regulatory certainty on their treatment. But that comes with its own limitations which include higher compliance costs, a smaller pool of eligible investors, restrictions on transferability and lower liquidity. For certain business models like , security tokens would be the best; whereas, for something like a blockchain protocol or a platform, utility tokens work the best. Both security tokens and utility tokens have their own merits and demerits, and which one is suitable for a particular business model varies on a case-to-case basis. It is essential to have a holistic look at how the choice of token affects the business model. Having a siloed approach — resorting to quick fixes and blindly following the market trends without fully considering the implications of the actions you take — does more harm than good in the long run. REITs So, take a step back and ask yourself: “Is it the right choice for my project?” Not sure whether a security token or a utility token is the is the right choice for your business model? Don’t worry, we at ICOMain offer a preliminary one-on-one consultation and review of your ICO project free-of-charge. Drop me a line on and we will help you figure it out. nirav.gala@icomain.io About ICOMain.io: ICOMain is a one-stop shop for all the things you need to complete a successful ICO. Our comprehensive solutions are designed for companies looking to tap into the immense potential of blockchain and launch their ICO in the most efficient manner possible. Our team comprises of seasoned experts who have a wealth of experience in advising ICOs and is complemented by our cutting-edge technology infrastructure. Our Team is dedicated to understanding their clients’ needs who may come from a diverse range of industries. We are also the first sponsor firm for the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) that aims to be a world-leading, institutional-grade token sale platform and cryptocurrency exchange. Find more about through our online channels: ICOMain.io : Website https://icomain.io/ : Telegram https://t.me/icomain_io Medium: https://medium.com/icomainio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mainlaunchpad/ : Twitter https://twitter.com/mainlaunchpad

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